In a Nutshell
by beautyineveryinch
Summary: "We're still friends, right?" he asked her suddenly as they stepped into one of the boats to cross the lake. She turned and looked at him before grabbing his hand and Remus' in the other. "The best of friends," she said with a smile.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: I wrote this all today, so if there are a couple mistakes, I apologize, but I wanted to get this out before I messed with it too much. I think I like what it is now. There are some run on sentences in here on purpose, because of the style I was going for with parts of this. I didn't do a lot of character development with the other characters, so just be forewarned. Rated this M just to be safe. This is different formatting from other things I write, so let me know what you think?

I don't own any of the characters from Harry Potter and all credit goes to J.K. Rowling for them. Kate's and her immediate family are my own characters and the rest are J.K.'s.

* * *

They were seven when they first met. She was at a ball with parents and brothers and her auntie and uncle and cousin. He was there with his parents and brother.

She was wearing a bright blue poofy ball gown for girls and her mum told her to find a nice boy to dance with besides her cousin James.

She stomped up to the boy with black hair and a sulking expression and asked him to dance.

He asked for her name.

"Kate Fowler," she replied.

He grinned. "You aren't a Pureblood." It wasn't a question.

She blanched and narrowed her eyes. "So?" she asked crossing her arms across her chest.

He continued to grin. "So, let's dance. My parents will be right miffed. It'll be brilliant," he said grabbing her hand and tugging her to the dance floor.

She stumbled after him and tried to yank her arm from him. "Pardon? You're dancing with me to make your mum and dad mad? And what does me not being a Pureblood have to do with anything?" she asked as he pulled her awkwardly into a dancing position.

He chuckled. " _Because_ ," he stressed the word as if it explained everything.

She clicked her tongue and glared. "That doesn't explain anything you dolt."

"Oi," he replied with a grin. He sighed when she continued to glare at him. "Because, they are Pureblood snobs and don't want to get their hands _dirty_ ," he said with a disgusted face. "But I happen to think the Muggles that live on my street are fun and interesting and funny, but my mum and dad are mean and won't let me play with them. I have to be stuck playing with Reg and he's a good little boy and listens to what they tell him. And they make me sit like a good _Pureblood_ and play the piano and sit up straight and turn my nose up at the _dirty_ Muggles on our street and call them vile things. And I don't want to do _any_ of that," he explained.

Kate relaxed slightly and tilted her head and looked at him curiously. "That's good of you," she said. "My daddy is a Muggleborn and all of his family are Muggles and I love them," she said with a grin. "You're nice, can we be friends?"

He grinned back, "Definitely."

"Sirius!" a clipped, arrogant female voice snapped from behind him. They two children stopped dancing and looked up at the haughty expression of a tall, black haired, fair faced woman. She was glaring down at the two and her face seemed to be stuck in a face that made Kate think she was smelling dung. Kate crinkled her nose at the woman. "What do you think you are doing?" she asked in a dangerously severe hiss.

Kate watched him glare at the woman and tilt his chin up defiantly. "I'm dancing, like you _told_ me to do."

"But _who_ are you dancing with?" she asked rudely. Kate crossed her arms and glared.

"This is my _friend_ Katie _Fowler_ ," he emphasized the two words and wore a satisfied grin on his face. "Mother," he added gritting his teeth.

His mother scowled at him before grabbing his wrist in a vice-like grip that made him wince. "You know better than to mingle with _them_ ," she spat and glared viciously down at Kate. "Come, you recalcitrant child. How many times do I have to tell you you are not to speak or _touch_ filthy Muggles or half-bloods. You are from the most noble and ancient House of Black and I will not let you defile our name because you are an ungrateful, disobedient son. You will dance and talk with only Purebloods and stay far away from this filth," she shot Kate another nasty glance and tightened her grip on Sirius as he tried to get away and dig his heels into the floor. She huffed before dragging him away. He looked back at Kate sadly and waved before his mother slapped his hand down. She took him over to a snobby blonde and forced the two to dance.

Kate stormed off to find her mum and cursed about the hateful woman.

"Katherine," her mother said soothingly. "There are people out there that believe they are better than others because of their 'blood status.' It's not right and don't for a second think you are not just as important of a person in this society as they are. You are better, in fact, because you are not filled with hate and scorn over something so trivial. You should judge someone on their character and not by who their parents are. Always remember that. And that boy you met seems to think that, and it's not fair that his parents are so cruel to him for having an open mind. But I'm afraid I can't make Mrs. Black," she nodded to the haughty woman, "be nice to you or let her son be friends with you."

Kate nodded sadly and looked back over at the boy who was glaring at his mother and sitting on the floor in defiance. She grinned at him as he resisted his mother's attempts to make him stand and stop embarrassing her. He glanced over at Kate and smiled at her before his mother noticed where he was looking. She grabbed his arm, yanked him off the ground and rushed him out of the ball, dragging him by the ear and hissing things into it.

* * *

They were eleven when they met again. The train chugged along the tracks, winding its way north through the English countryside. Steam billowed from the chimney and clouded the bright blue sky outside the windows of each compartment. Kate scurried down the corridor dragging her best friend along with her as she quickly glanced in each compartment.

"He's here somewhere," she said looking over her shoulder at the sandy haired boy trailing after her.

He grinned at her and she grinned back.

"James!" she yelped as soon as she saw the messy black hair and crooked glasses of her cousin. She threw open the compartment door and jumped on top of him, hugging him and grinning broadly at the skinny boy.

"Bug!" he laughed and hugged her back before pushing her off and straitening himself. "Where've you been, then?" he asked as she settled into the seat next to him while her friend hesitantly sat across from her and next to a black haired boy who was watching the scene with amusement.

"Looking for you, of course," she replied. "This is Remus, my best friend! Remus, this is James, my cousin," she introduced them.

"Oh right, hi mate!" James said waving at Remus. "Can't believe we haven't met before," he said ruffling his already messy hair with his hand.

Remus nodded his head and said a quiet, "Hello."

"Remus is a little shy," Kate said waving her hand and turning her head to look at the other boy in the compartment. "You look familiar," she said tilting her head and squinting at him.

"Sirius…Black," he introduced himself hesitantly.

"Oh! You've got that mean mum that wouldn't let us dance at that ball! You liked playing with Muggles," she said laughing.

He grinned at her. "Yeah, that's me. Katie Fowler, right? Mum was right miffed with me that day. It was brilliant like I said it would be," he said grinning more broadly.

She laughed and the four of them all talked about Hogwarts and magic and being in Gryffindor. Then they played exploding snap and traded chocolate frogs.

"We're still friends, right?" he asked her suddenly as they stepped into one of the boats to cross the lake.

She turned and looked at him before grabbing his hand and Remus' in the other. "The best of friends," she said with a smile.

He smiled widely back at her.

* * *

They were twelve and playing spin the bottle and she had spun the butterbeer bottle (Merlin knows where _they_ got it from) and it landed squarely on him.

He smirked at her and it was the smirk that him and James and Remus and Peter had all perfected in the last year of their friendship. It was known as the Marauder grin because that was what they called themselves and it was so silly, she thought.

She blushed as he looked pointedly at her.

She leaned over the center of the circle and he followed suit and she quickly pecked his lips against his and he grabbed the back of her head and pressed his lips firmly against hers.

She yelped and shoved his shoulders back and they laughed as they sat back in their spots in the small circle.

It was her first kiss and his second.

* * *

She went on her first date on the second Hogsmeade trip of their third year. She had just turned fourteen and it was December and cold and she was bundled up in a jacket and scarf and boots and she was on a date with Joseph Stebbins and he had soft neat brown hair and a slightly pimply face. They went Christmas shopping and had butterbeers at the Three Broomsticks and Kate almost poured her drink over her head by the end of it because he was so boring. He hugged her at the end when they reentered the Entrance Hall and tried to kiss her but she pushed his face away and told him they should just be friends.

He went on his first date with Sue Li, one of Kate's dorm mates, and he snogged her in the carriage back to the school and told her she was pretty and asked her to be his girlfriend. They broke up two weeks later when he told her he was bored. He snogged Julie Thatcher, a Hufflepuff fourth year, the next day and didn't ask her to be his girlfriend. Girlfriends were too boring and he just liked the snogging part.

Kate's first boyfriend wasn't until the next year, after Christmas break. She dated Phillip Phipps, a fit Ravenclaw fifth year, for four months before he dumped her saying she wasn't mature enough for him. Whatever that meant. She cried for a week and her friends gave her lots of chocolate and Sirius and James hexed him one day in the hall and he ended up in the hospital wing for an afternoon with boils.

* * *

He ran away from home one rainy night at the end of July after their fifth year. He had a bruise on his jaw, reddened knuckles, and a large gash on his shoulder from a curse when he showed up soaking wet with two bags slung over his shoulder on the Potter's doorstep. Kate was over at James' house playing chess with him and they ushered him inside, had the house elf set up _his_ room and bring him food. Kate made him an icepack and sat next to him on the couch and hugged him close as the Potter's told him he was their son too.

She told him she loved him and she would always love him and would never hurt him.

He told her the same thing.

* * *

She was attacked one night in their sixth year in the corridor on the fifth floor on her way back from the hospital wing by a group of four Slytherins that called her a dirty half-blood, blood traitor whore. One of the boys, Roland Mulciber, hit her with a slicing jinx that left a nasty gash on her neck and broke her leg when she tried to run. Another, Marcus Avery, cackled and bound her hands with ropes while he kissed her and put his hand under her shirt.

Sirius pulled Avery off of her and punched him in the face before she blacked out.

She woke up in the hospital wing with Sirius sitting next to her beside holding her hand and looking exhausted. James, Remus, and Peter were all sat at the end of her bed looking worried. They had seen them gang up on her on the map of the school they had.

Avery and Mulciber were suspended for a month and all four boys got detentions for three months.

Sirius hexed all four of them the next time he saw them and ended up getting detention for a month.

"Worth it," he said with a grin and hugged her tightly to his chest, rubbing gentle circles into her back as she smiled into his neck and breathed in his cologne.

"Thanks," she replied.

She hexed Avery when he cornered her in an alcove on the way to class when he threatened to have her family murdered for tattling on him.

He was going to be a Death Eater and her family was fighting against them and she told him to "Sod off you great pillock," before aiming a Bat Bogey Hex at his face and finishing off with a Petrificus Totalus. She failed to mention he was lying in that alcove and it took an hour before anyone found him.

She got a weeks' worth of detention and the tiniest of smiles from Professor McGonagall.

"Worth it," she said with a grin as Sirius high fived her.

"I could just kiss you," he replied and hugged her tightly to him, spinning her around.

She grinned back at him as he hesitated before letting her go and they stared at each other a moment longer before looking away. She blushed and he coughed.

* * *

Her eldest brother Elliot was killed two months later by a couple of Death Eaters. His body was found mangled and hanging from a post outside his office.

Mr. and Mrs. Fowler came to get Kate from Hogwarts for the funeral and invited James to come too, since he was practically like another brother.

Sirius waited outside of Dumbledore's office and when she and James came walking out to get bags for the weekend, she collapsed into Sirius' arms and cried. James went to Gryffindor tower and got their stuff.

Her parents invited Sirius and Remus to the funeral too. Sirius held her against his chest as she let tears fall down her cheeks and he rubbed circles into her back.

When she woke up in the middle of the night every other night after that, he held her against his chest on the sofa in the Gryffindor common room at three in the morning until she fell back asleep.

* * *

Ewan Craig, her boyfriend of six months, broke up with her at the end of July after her sixth year. He had just graduated Hogwarts and was about to start a job at the Ministry and told her that he didn't think the long distance would work out.

Kate was sure he was jealous of Sirius.

Sirius and Marlene took her out to drink at a pub and she got wasted with them and James.

She snogged Sirius that night when she stumbled into his chest in her parents' front garden when he was helping her home.

He tasted like Firewhiskey and cigarettes and mint and his hair was soft between her cold fingers and he was warm and solid and so very _Sirius_.

He reveled in her soft, pink lips that tasted like cherry chapstick and Firewhiskey and vinegar from the chips she devoured. And her gorgeous brown hair smelled like flowers and her skin was cold and soft and she shivered at his touch and giggled when he kissed her over and over again.

She woke up the next day with a nasty hangover and no memory of the night before. He woke up, vomited once, felt better, and remembered everything from the night before.

He didn't bring it up when he realized she didn't remember.

He couldn't stop staring at her the rest of the day though and that night he dreamt of snogging her in his bed.

She blushed every time he looked at her that day and had been fancying him ever since he held her and let her cry in his arms after her brother was killed three months previously.

* * *

He asked her to go to the first Hogsmeade trip of their seventh year as friends and everyone teased them about going on a date. She had hesitantly accepted and he finally wheedled the truth out of her. She had kind of wanted a date to Hogsmeade by someone because she wanted to snog a boy. He told her with a wink he could help her out with that. She blushed and shoved his face away from her as they sat in the Three Broomsticks laughing and sharing a plate of chips.

He slung his arm around her shoulders as they walked down the lane of Hogsmeade. He was whistling and smoking a cigarette and she had her arm wrapped around his waist and was smiling as she fought to keep her hair tucked behind her ear as the wind blew around them.

He pulled her off into a back alley and tugged her into his chest and smiled down at her before tucking her hair behind her ears and cupping her face. Her breath hitched in her throat and she couldn't quite tell if her cheeks were warm from blushing or from his calloused hands. Her heart hammered against her chest though and his breath on her face smelled like butterbeer and cigarettes and she breathed in the smell of his cologne and smiled nervously up at him as he grinned down at her.

Then he placed his chapped lips against hers and she slid her arms around his neck and they were snogging in an alley in Hogsmeade and her hair smelled like flowers and she tasted like butterbeer and chips and cherry chapstick and he gently pushed her back against the wall and placed his hand between the back of her head and the brick wall. Her hair bunched up in his hand and he tilted his head slightly and they were snogging and her body was pressed against his and it was so bloody fantastic.

They paused to catch their breath and their foreheads were pressed against each other and they were panting slightly and little clouds blew in each other's face with each breath and they were smiling.

"What was that for?" she asked breathily.

"You said you wanted a good snog," he replied with a smirk.

She laughed and he grinned and pressed his lips against hers again.

They didn't talk about it after they left the alley. They didn't catch each other's sidelong glances either.

* * *

He punched his brother in the face and hexed him for being a "dumb little shit" when he found him cursing a second year Muggleborn with Snape, Avery, and Mulciber.

"You can't tell me what to do, we aren't _family_ ," Regulus had hissed at him after spitting out blood. He turned on his back and stormed away from Sirius who was being held back by Remus. James and Peter had their wands raised at the Slytherins still standing there sneering at them.

"Oh sod off you lot," James growled after a moment. "Thirty points from Slytherin and you can bet on a bunch of detention after I speak to Dumbledore about this."

"Yeah _Potter_ , run off to that oaf, you won't have his protection after Hogwarts anymore and you'll all be sorry," Avery sneered at them. "Blood traitors and half-bloods and your filthy Mudblood and half-blood whores too," he spat on the ground in front of them. "You'll all get what you deserve."

James and Sirius both hexed Avery and received a week's worth of detention.

"Worth it," Sirius said moodily as he sat against a beech tree on the edge of the lake, staring out across the water.

Kate snuggled into his side and held his hand "I'm sorry about Regulus," she said quietly.

Sirius gripped her hand and took another drag from his cigarette before nodding his head curtly. "Me too," he replied bitterly.

* * *

They joined the Order the day after they graduated with James, Lily, Remus, Peter, and Marlene. Their first assignments were boring, staking out a low profile place and they complained in James and Sirius' apartment while sharing a round of Firewhiskey.

And every mission after that for the first three months felt the same. Like they weren't doing anything worthwhile.

During the fourth month, Sirius, Remus, and Marlene almost got murdered. Kate, James, Lily, and Peter ended up in Mungo's after a blast at a raid and ended up in Mungo's for a few days.

They all sat in James and Sirius' flat again with a round of Firewhiskey and didn't say anything.

They fought and snuck around and spied and almost died several times. They watched innocent Muggles and wizards from all blood statuses get murdered and couldn't stop them and got injured several times and almost died many more times.

They all had scars littered on their bodies and all of them drank and smoked and tried to forget the smell of burning flesh and screams of children being tortured and it was too much and too terrible.

* * *

Sirius and Kate were backed up against a wall battling against three Death Eaters and other Order members were doing the same thing nearby. A green flash blasted a hole into the wall to Kate's right, brick shrapnel cut large gashes into her face. She sent a powerful stunning spell at one of the Death Eaters and watched them fly ten feet backwards before thudding hard on the ground. Her hand was trembling with fury.

Sirius watched the light and chanced a glance to his right and sighed when it didn't hit her. He blocked another curse and sent one right back, anger coursing through his veins. He missed. He sent another and another and another in quick succession and blasted the other two Death Eaters twenty feet away, leaving a crater in the ground with their bodies.

He rushed over to Katie and pulled her into his chest and she trembled in his arms. He nuzzled his nose into her hair and breathed in the faint smell of flowers and the stale stench of burnt hair and musky sweat. She lifted her head up and grey eyes met hazel and he kissed her with such passion she stumbled backwards. He grabbed her and pulled her back into his chest. They sat there in the alley and snogged like it was their last moment and they only broke apart when James yelled, "Oi, lovebirds, a little help over here!"

He told her he loved her that night when they stumbled into her flat and she said it back and he asked her to be his girl and they made love in her bed that night.

* * *

Lily and James got married in the Potter's backyard in the spring of 1979 after being engaged for four months.

It was a breath of fresh air in the suffocating smoke of the war.

Lily looked radiant and James was beaming and they were so in love it was almost sickening. Sirius made a ridiculous, albeit sweet best man speech that had people laughing and Lily crying. Kate cried during her maid of honor speech and Sirius threw cake in her face and licked it clean off.

They danced and drank with their friends, and for that one night, they forgot about the war raging just outside the wards of the Potter's yard.

* * *

One step forward, two steps back.

That's what it felt like with every victory. Every victory the Order had was followed by more devastation, more losses. Voldemort and his Death Eaters were winning and The Order and Muggles were losing and dying at every turn.

Kate vomited on herself when she was two seconds too slow in saving a three year old girl from getting murdered by Avery.

He smiled victoriously in her face and she punched him squarely in the jaw before snapping his wand in half.

He got away though and the next time she saw him, he had a new wand and hit her with a Crucio curse for five minutes before Sirius stopped him. Hee escaped capture again.

Sirius vomited after drinking an absurd amount of Firewhiskey after coming home from a failed mission where Callum Pritchard was killed.

They lost seven Order members that year.

* * *

Kate got hit with a slicing jinx straight into her abdomen and had emergency surgery.

They told her she would never be able to have children of her own and she cried until her mother forced a sleeping potion down her mouth.

Sirius held her almost all the time for the next week unable to comfort her loss of the one thing she had always wanted.

Peter had to stop him from murdering the Death Eater that had done it to her, the next time he saw him.

* * *

Lily found out she was pregnant that fall and James was going to be a _dad_ and it was all so ridiculous, the thought of having a baby (a _baby!)_ in the middle of this awful war that seemed like it would never end.

And hadn't they just been kids yesterday? Where had the time gone? Where had their childhood gone?

They were nineteen years old and felt eighty with all the stress wrinkles and scars and fatigue.

And then Lily and James had Harry the next summer and he was beautiful and a spitting image of James except for Lily's glittering green eyes. They named Sirius and Kate godparents and Kate had a child to spoil and love and cuddle and Sirius saw her genuinely smile for the first time in months.

His heart ached something awful and he kissed her face over and over again and told her how much he loved her and that beautiful smile.

She smiled like that more often, just for him and they were okay for a little while.

* * *

Sirius held Kate in his arms night after night and their voices got quieter and quieter. They fought and she cried and he drank and they snogged and kept on fighting against Voldemort.

Their relationship got more and more strained as they were away from each other more and more because of missions and so many Order members dying. James and Lily were in hiding and Voldemort was after their son and there was a spy in the Order. Kate and Sirius fought over who it was and that night he left and she drank.

The next day he came home and apologized and they made up in their bed for hours.

James and Lily asked Sirius to be their secret keeper and Sirius told them to go one step further and make Peter the secret keeper.

He didn't tell Kate.

And when Lily and James were killed and Sirius was sent to Azkaban for murdering all those Muggles and Peter, Kate laid on the floor of their flat and cried for two days until his birthday. Remus came back from his mission and picked her up and held her close. She clung to him tightly but still felt so wretchedly alone.

Sirius sat in his cell in Azkaban shivering and thinking about all the terrible things the dementors were making him remember. And all he could think about was James and Lily dead and Katie not smiling and Katie. Katie. Katie. And a large piece of him died in that cell and he never got it back, even after he escaped twelve years later.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Alright this part came out longer than I anticipated, but I like it, so I made it it's own chapter. One more chapter to finish it off. Let me know what you think. Narrative is a little different from the previous chapter, but it's just how it flowed when I wrote it.

I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters, all that credit goes to J.K. Rowling.

* * *

Kate considered the cigarette hanging loosely between her thumb and index finger. She rolled it back and forth feeling the cheap paper rub against the pads of her fingers and sighed. She glared out at her backyard then looked back down at the object of her scrutiny before lifting it to her mouth and lighting the end of it with her wand. She breathed out a puff of smoke and watched it swirl around in front of her, breathing in the musty smell.

It reminded her of him.

She took a long drink from the glass sitting on the rail of her back porch and gripped the glass tightly. She glared down at it as the taste of firewhiskey mingled with the taste of smoke. She suddenly had the urge to throw both things as far away from her as possible.

But she was a masochist and she took another drag and chased it with a swallow of the amber liquid.

And then again. And several more times after that, all the while she glared down the willow tree in her backyard. She was vaguely wondering how the tree hadn't ignited into flames with the intensity of her stare.

Her mind, the traitor it was, painted a familiar scene in an alley in Hogsmeade on a autumn day eighteen years ago. Orange and yellow leaves whirling around in the wind, a brick wall grazing her back through her coat, warm hands against her skin, warm lips tasting of mint and cigarettes and butterbeer…

She groaned and threw the half-finished cigarette down onto the porch and ground it angrily into powder beneath her boot. She drank the last of the whiskey in her glass and slammed it down on the railing before slumping to the ground with her face in her palms. She took a few steadying breaths before her resolve failed and tears streamed down her cheeks, pooling briefly into her palms before trickling through the cracks between her fingers.

* * *

He breathed in the smell of pine and the distinct earthy smell of the dirt beneath him and felt a calming relief overtake him, one that he hadn't experienced in years. He stopped and sat down, allowing the faint breeze to flutter the ends of his black fur. He sniffed at the air again and let out a content whimper, reveling in the overwhelming sense of freedom it reminded him of. The trees rustled in the breeze and he could hear several critters scuttling through the forest. His snout picked up distinct smells of squirrels and birds and he allowed his head to turn vaguely in the direction of the animals. He permitted himself to lie down in the soft dirt and settled his head on the top of his long, thin fur covered paws. His eyes lazily scanned his surroundings, the familiar and calming setting lulling him into a sense of safety and security, a feeling he hadn't felt in over a decade.

He had done it, escaped Hell. He was free. In a sense.

The gravity of the situation weighed heavily on his mind and he let out a morose whimper before rubbing one of his paws over his snout. The ache in his chest pounded a steady rhythm and the anger coursed like fire through his veins.

 _He's going to Hogwarts_. _Hogwarts. Hogwarts._

The name of his alma mater repeated like a mantra in his head and he reluctantly lifted his weak body from its lying position. He arched his back and took another long breath of the earthy scent before trotting onward.

His nose picked up another familiar scent and he gravitated towards it before stopping in front of a purple flowered plant. He buried his nose into the blooms and the ache in his chest became sharp. He stared longingly at the flower before pawing at the blooms. His mind reeled and he imagined soft, flowing brown hair, cherry chapstick, and soft fair skin cool against his warm skin. Another whimper escaped his snout and he took one last whiff before turning away and continuing on his way.

* * *

Remus found her curled into a heap on her back porch while the light mist of a soft rainfall drizzled in the foggy morning light. He took in her sleeping form, worry lines etched deeply across her forehead, hands balled into fists under chin, clothes damp and clinging to her thin frame. Strands of her brown hair were stuck to her pale face and her eyelids were shut without a trace of relaxation.

He felt a deep ache in his chest and carefully strode forward, conjuring a dry blanket from the tip of his wand. His thin fingers touched her shoulder lightly, then pressed more firmly and his soft voice called her nickname, "Kat."

Her eyes fluttered lightly before opening. She blinked a few times, allowing her eyes to adjust from blurred to focused. She felt the light mist of rain against her cheek and a shiver rain down her spine when she realized she was damp. Her eyes focused in on the familiar light brown eyes looking at her with familiar concern.

"Roo," she said hoarsely before sitting up and groaning from the stiffness aching along her body. She glanced around and groaned again when she realized she was still lying on the back porch.

Remus watched her silently as he helped her to her feet and draped the blanket around her shoulders. She sent him a grateful smile before the corners fell into a frown. The two traipsed into the small cottage and Kate stumbled into one of the dining table chairs. She stared out the glass door they just walked through as Remus flicked his wand a few times. A few moments later two cups of tea floated to the table and one settled in front of Kate. Remus sat down across from her and took a hesitant sip from his cup. Kate took the spoon sitting in the mug and absentmindedly stirred the brown liquid around.

After several silent minutes of Remus sipping at his tea and Kate staring helplessly down at her stirring hand, she stopped and looked up at Remus pitifully. "Why?" she croaked out.

He set his cup down slowly and mirrored her anxious gaze. His lips formed a thin line and he shook his head. "I don't know," he replied feeling overwhelmingly distressed.

Kate ran her palms up her face and clutched frustrated at the roots of her hair. Her brown locks fell down and created a sheet in front of her face.

* * *

The Aurors questioned her, asking what she knew and any information that may have been helpful in searching for the escaped murderer Sirius Black.

She didn't have answers for them, as she repeated this over and over, they eyed her suspiciously. Frustrated, she continued to provide little help to them increasingly worried dark wizard catchers.

His face, thin and gaunt, with scraggly black hair framing his face and crazed eyes, stared up at her on the front page of every edition of _The Daily Prophet_. Her stomach felt sick each time she watched the skeletal face yell silently from the black and white frame.

Her name cropped up a couple of times in the _Prophet's_ articles detailing some of the infamous escapee's history. The furtive glances she received at work and out in public set her into an anxious state she couldn't quite overcome.

His face, young, handsome, and full of life invaded her dreams along with the crazed prisoner. She woke up multiple times in a cold sweat and vomited more times than she dared to admit to Remus or her mum.

She stopped sleeping. She changed to vodka from the muggle liquor store in the next town over and smoked menthols instead of the _other_ kind and it sort of helped.

But not really.

Remus asked her if he needed her to stay. She told him she would be fine. He needed to go. Dumbledore offered him the best bloody job he'd ever had and she wasn't about to let him talk himself out of it.

Her mum fretted over her well-being so Kate tried harder to hide her anxiety. She bottled it up for when she was alone in the lonely confines of her small cottage. It grew with each day he was still roaming free.

* * *

He found her address by pure luck when he was snooping around a village. He traveled to the western English village and settled himself into a bush in her backyard, watching avidly. He noted the quaint cottage with its grassy backyard and large willow and large garden. It was a house like she had always mentioned wanting. His nose picked up the myriad of flowers and itched to pad through the dewy grass to the back door, but restrained himself.

When she walked into the backyard with a short glass of clear liquid in one hand and a cigarette in the other with a disheveled appearance, he pawed the ground in distress. He watched as she paced the yard before a furry black dog shot out from the open door. It raced around the yard before peeing against a bush. He watched as she took a long drink from her glass and gazed dejectedly at the dog as it sniffed the ground, making a beeline towards his hiding spot. He tensed up and noticed Kate slowly walking back to the porch and sitting in a chair, closing her eyes as she took a drag of her cigarette. The other dog stopped short at the bushes and growled. Sirius pawed at the ground and hesitantly sniffed towards the other dog. The other tilted its head before cautiously sniffing Padfoot back.

"Shadow!" her voice rang out against the quiet morning and Sirius looked up. The dog nudged him with its nose before running back towards the cottage and stopping in front Kate.

Sirius watched as she laid a gentle hand on the top of the dog's head before walking back inside, Shadow following behind her. He stared longingly at the cottage for a while longer before pulling himself away with a heavy heart.

He traveled south and saw Harry for the first time since he was a baby. He looked so much like James, standing there in that alley, his wand raised and a light shining from the end of it with a frightened look on his face. He was dragging a trunk behind him and looked angry and scared. Sirius watched as he tripped backwards in surprise and heard the distinct crack and rumbling as the purple triple decker _Knight Bus_ screeched to a halt in the spot where Harry had just fallen.

Using every ounce of control he had, he dragged his feet away before Harry returned to a standing position. He ran and the image of James and Lily's teenage son burned into his vision as a fresh new determination for his mission set in.

* * *

Remus left on September first, the day after the full moon, barely recovered from his transformation the night before. Kate hugged him tightly and wished him luck and reminded him to write often to let her know about his teaching job and about _Harry_.

He eyed her worriedly, but promised all of the above and made her promise to write him back too and if she needed to talk or needed help, to let him know.

She nodded her head and hugged him tightly once more before he headed off. She gripped the necklace in her hand tightly and looked down after he left to see the imprint of a star on her palm. She felt bile burn in her esophagus and she chucked the offending necklace across her living room before settling into the couch, fresh tears trickling down her cheeks.

She was a pathetic mess.

* * *

He reached Hogwarts and took in the familiar landscape with fresh nostalgia. The memories flooded his mind a fresh wave of guilt sadness anger and despair filled him as he eyed the castle as he crawled out from under the Whomping Willow. He vaguely noticed the floating dementors on the outskirts of the grounds and shivered at the thought of the foul creatures he had spent the last decade and some with. The cold and dread they instilled started to take hold but he remembered they were out of reach of him and he felt a smug sense of satisfaction as the hole from the Shrieking Shack closed. He padded towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest and sat down staring up at the castle, trees, and the bright full moon above him. He stared guiltily up at the moon above him before resigning and heading back to the Willow. He crawled back into the Shrieking Shack, with his former werewolf friend on his mind. He settled down on the dusty floorboards, alone and depressed, wondering what ever happened to Moony. He lied there letting his memories and guilt overtake him until he fell asleep in the darkness.

He spent considerable amounts of time trying to figure out the best way to get into the castle and figure out where Wormtail was. He vaguely remembered his parents disdain for the Weasley family and remembered the red haired members tended to fall into Gryffindor. He decided to start there, hoping the boy in the picture with Wormtail on his shoulder was in that house. A sense of dread filled him at the thought, because he was sure Harry would be in Gryffindor too, which meant Wormtail was too close to Harry for Sirius' comfort, and he needed to get in there faster to get the murderous traitor away from his godson.

He wasn't aware of how long he had crawled around the grounds but he finally sprung in one night after watching Hagrid lug familiar giant pumpkins into the castle that afternoon. He educated a guess it was Halloween and as he slinked through the empty corridors, he focused solely on his mission—to get to Peter Pettigrew and avenge James and Lily.

The Fat Lady had always been a stickler for the bloody password and as he slashed angrily at her empty portrait, he cursed her with every foul word he could think of. He screams echoed through the empty corridors and he quickly retreated, taking some well trekked secret passageways he knew from his glory days. He brooded in the Shrieking Shack for a while.

He spent one stormy afternoon watching a Quidditch match and swelled with pride as he watched Harry fly around the field, just as well as James, if not better. When the dementors showed up and Harry fell and his broom crashed into the Whomping Willow, hatred for the foul creatures increased tenfold. He felt so bloody useless without a wand to send the dementors away.

When he met the orange cat that was cleverer than any cat he'd met before, he tried his hardest to get the cat to trust him. The cat eventually did and helped him at the post office to send off a mail order for a _Firebolt_ for a Christmas present for Harry. And the cat managed to sneak a list of passwords for the Gryffindor tower from one of the residents. Sirius, crazed with the prospect of finally getting to Peter, slashed his way into the red haired boy's bed and fled as soon as the teenage boy screamed at the sight of Sirius.

Sirius felt dejected and frustrated and angered at failing yet again. He knew Wormtail would hide more and Sirius was furious with himself for not being more careful.

* * *

Kate managed to finally gain some semblance of her life back after a couple weeks of Remus being gone. News of Sirius had started to fade, with no news of him, it was hard for the reporters to continue their daily articles.

Her hands trailed over the gold chain and her thumb rubbed over the small star on the necklace. She let the chain slip through her fingers back into the box and looked disgusted at the box before closing it tightly and floating it back into the very darkest depths of her basement storage.

She wrote Remus regularly and celebrated his letters detailing his adventures as the DADA professor and about his interactions with Harry. Her heart swelled at his description of Harry and she longed to meet her godson again. She laughed for several minutes when she read the letter that Remus had confiscated the Marauder's Map from Harry and felt, momentarily, like she was sixteen again conspiring with her boys.

When news of Sirius Black slashing the Fat Lady's portrait at Hogwarts reached her, she passed out. When Remus wrote that Harry had received a Firebolt from an unknown person, her heart jolted uncomfortably. And when she heard Sirius had escaped capture inside the walls of Hogwarts _again_ , she thought she was going to die prematurely of a heart attack.

* * *

He felt bad about grabbing the kid by the leg, but he had Wormtail in his hands and Sirius was not about to let the bloody traitor get away _again_. So when the loud bang of the kid's leg breaking as he dragged him into the passage under the Whomping Willow, he reasoned, it was a necessary injury. He was _so_ close to avenging Prongs, he wasn't stopping.

When Harry punched him in the face and pointed a wand with hatred in his eyes, he challenged the kid in front of him as the mangy orange cat clawed into his chest.

And Moony, dear Moony, who Sirius had so wrongly feared was the spy all those years ago, showed up and pulled him into a hug and believed him. Sirius felt a heavy weight drop from his stomach and he was so bloody relieved.

It took some frustratingly long explanation and crazed impatience on Sirius' part, but Harry believed his story and here he was with a wand in his hand and Moony standing next to him with a wand in his hand. The traitorous piece of shit was begging on the ground in front of them and they were about to avenge James and Lily and Sirius was so ready to get it over with.

But Harry stopped them.

And he loved the kid, but he wanted to hex him for stopping him. But then he said he didn't think James would want his best friends to be murders and all determination to kill Peter drained from him and left him with such anguish, he felt sick.

And then he was offering Harry a place to live and dreaming of somehow making up with Katie and them being a family and it was all too good to be true.

Especially when the full moon shone through the clouds and Remus changed and Sirius had to stop him from attacking Harry and his friends.

Peter got away and Sirius could have killed Peter a thousand times over for it.

He blacked out from the dementors almost sucking out his soul and woke up in an office he vaguely registered being Professor Flitwick's office on the seventh floor. He repeated the story to Dumbledore and relief flooded him as Dumbledore believed him, even if he couldn't clear him.

And somehow he was staring out the bars at Harry and Harry's friend Hermione riding a bloody hippogriff and blasting the bars to get him out. He was in awe of his godson and never in his wildest dreams could have imagined Harry being the incredible person he was.

* * *

Her heart couldn't handle it anymore. She wished it would stop causing so much pain and anxiety.

Remus had stumbled back into the cottage too many days before the end of the semester and told her the bewildering events of the night before.

Kate couldn't breathe.

He was _innocent_.

She couldn't take it. It was all too much, the rollercoaster of emotions was draining her.

But he was _innocent_.

Her heart thumped madly in her chest, like it was trying to escape to go and find him. (Her mind was also making up some pretty wild metaphors.) She cried into Remus' shoulder and was a blubbering mess. And when Dumbledore came by to discuss it with her she was still a mess and she could feel his pitying gaze on her.

* * *

She stood staring out into the darkness of her backyard, sipping on Firewhiskey and smoking a lone cigarette in the sticky summer heat. August was coming to a close, and she reflected on being in a similar position a year ago, but her feelings were drastically different.

Her lips touched the cigarette again and she blew a puff of smoke out when she heard the crunch of leaves and the gentle padding of paws against the soft ground. She eyed the darkness and quickly lit the lamps on the outside of the house.

A tall, emaciated figure appeared in the edge of the light and she felt her breath hitch in her throat as she quickly looked around for anyone else. Her house was a good distance from her neighbors and she quickly let out her breath.

" _Katie_."


End file.
